Continuing coverage: ICE activity in the Buffalo Niagara region
The Trump administration’s intensified raids and arrests have shaken the immigrant community in Western New York. Among restaurant workers, farm workers, volunteers and even international students are afraid to go to work or even out in public. You can read The Buffalo News' stories about current immigration enforcement policies and their effect on the Buffalo Niagara region below.
(25) updates to this series since Updated
Citing "unspeakable acts of violence" committed by federal immigration officers, Gov. Kathy Hochul on Friday proposed a state law to ban local police across New York from working with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on immigration raids.
Several restaurants, cafés and shops closed Friday to protest the Trump administration's intensified ICE activity. The strike calls for "no work," "no school" and "no shopping."
Gary Kabeya, an asylum-seeker from the Democratic Republic of Congo was taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody on the West Side on Halloween, several days before he was about to start a job with UPS.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been denying and returning books delivered to Batavia detainees since unveiling a new mail-handling policy in July. A spokesperson said it's for safety, but activists say it violates their First Amendment rights.
Not everybody stays the course in federal court when challenging detention. Several detainees who filed petitions for release so far this year withdrew them, even early in the court process, after deciding to leave the country without a further fight.
Thomas Homan, the president's border czar, has said that Trump has secured the U.S. border "to its highest level." But in communities where the arrests are being carried out, questions immediately follow regarding whether they are worth the cost.
Judge Lawrence J. Vilardo of the U.S District Court, Western District of New York, ruled that federal authorities must release Oliver Eloy Mata Velasquez from the Buffalo Federal Immigration Detention Center while his lawsuit is being considered.
“A lot of immigrants have been very frightened by what they are hearing in the news,” said a Buffalo immigration attorney. “And there is just a lot of fear out there in the community.”
The Trump administration’s intensified immigration raids and arrests have shaken the local agricultural community, which is dependent on migrant labor. “No farm would survive without them," said a Western New York fruit farmer.
U.S. District Judge Lawrence Vilardo became the most recent federal judge to weigh in with concerns over how U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement treated someone targeted for deportation.
Caleb Vitello has been removed from a top post at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, after serving in the job for one month.
Two Buffalo attorneys raised questions about the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, after saying their client was arrested and sent to an immigration detention facility despite having no record of violence or criminal activity.
The 46-year-old University at Buffalo grad, a high-ranking official of U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement, was recently named by Trump as the acting director of that agency.
The four men taken into custody, including two from Honduras, one from Mexico and one from Ecuador were turned over to ICE's Removal and Enforcement Operations.
The 13 F-1 visa holders had their records in the Exchange Visitor Information System "unexpectedly terminated" in the last week by ICE's Student and Exchange Visitor Program, the university said in a news release.
A judge's order in Buffalo kept an Iranian woman off a deportation flight to Iran, but a Texas court will decide what happens next.
With his ruling in a local case, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Vilardo joined a vast majority of the country's federal judges who have rejected an interpretation of federal law that those who illegally entered the United States must be detained.
Jeremy Torrealba Llorente “has not been provided with any reason for his detention – and there does not appear to be any lawful justification for it,” Jackson said in a court filing as he sought a federal court order this week to temporarily block a potential deportation.
Since the Jan. 20 start of the second Trump administration, 26 migrants have been charged in Buffalo with reentering the United States after having been previously deported, according to a Buffalo News review of court cases.
Homeland Security Investigations arrests Jamestown man over online threats to immigration agents.
The federal government said it will restore proof of legal status for thousands of international students, but anxiety and uncertainty remain for University at Buffalo students hit by a student visa crackdown.
A University at Buffalo graduate from India whose student visa was revoked earlier this month by the U.S. State Department filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday in Buffalo seeking to return to his post-graduate training program.
Between 200 and 300 demonstrators rallied together for a protest against the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) outside 250 …
Hundreds of protesters demonstrated against Delaware North, the Jacobs family, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of a May Day nati…
Gary Kabeya, 24, was detained by federal agents on Oct. 31. A judge on Thursday granted bond.
"I'm certainly fearful," said one Buffalo restaurant owner. "I've told everyone, 'Look, have copies of all your IDs... have copies of your I-9s... keep it on you at all times."
The debate over what to do about immigrants who have entered the country illegally or as refugees has been playing out for months in government offices and on the streets of American cities. But it also is a daily occurrence in federal courtrooms.
Agents are accused of dropping off Nurul Amin Shah Alam, who was mostly blind and unable to communicate in English, at a restaurant.
